Weaknesses: Tire bead blew out before the tire was worn, after only a month and a half of use

Bottom Line:

I bought this tire looking for a smooth skidding, pretty fast tire that would out last the standard Zaffiros I'd been using. Some reviewers seem to have suggested that the grip is inconsistent and that the tire feels slow. I've never noticed this personally, grip was always fine, even after the tire was really worn and squared off. I was able to still really lean into corners without any unintentional slip outs, and the rolling speed always seemed about average. The only time I noticed any real squirminess was skidding in the wet after the tire was significantly worn down, but I guess that's to be expected. Skids were some of the smoothest I've experienced compared to conventional tires right off the bat, and the tire does seem to just last and last as advertised. The only real issue is that after only about a month and a half of use the tire bead ruptured and the sidewall bulged, rendering the tire useless. This is pretty annoying considering that this seems to be a common issue with these tires going back to their debut a few years ago. Yet despite a cosmetic redesign for 2012, this flaw still hasn't been corrected. When examining the tire after the failure, the tread was still only worn to about half it's thickness, so there was still a lot of life left to go. It's possible that under-inflating on a few occasions may have hastened the sidewall blowout; but when looking at the tire bead, it's pretty noticeable that in comparison to other steel bead tires the bead on the Everwears is very thinly built. There were indeed numerous cracks all around the rubber coating the tire bead, so I'd say a failure at some point was immanent. In the end, this is the only true issue I had with this tire that kept me from rating it a 5 out of 5. It seems to be well priced these days, since I scooped mine for about the same price a set of Zaffiros go for ($20 bucks or so), so I still may buy another set again in the future regardless.

Weaknesses: We call them ever SQUARES. The tire squares off in about two weeks of riding and skidding.

Bottom Line:

I love these tires and ride them all the time. Try them out. But to each his own!

Overall Rating:

Value Rating:

Submitted by
Matt
a Road Racer

Date Reviewed: July 9, 2011

Strengths: Rolls like a charm when you first get it
super durable
i <3 soma

Weaknesses: no warning strip like website says

Bottom Line:

Great tire, it rolls super smooth when you first get it but the "smooth rolling profile" quickly turns into flat spots no matter how often you rotate your wheel. And according to somas website theres a red warning strip of rubber to let you know when your getting close to the threads and that is not the case, atleast not on my tire. And i never had any problems with the side wall but i always keep my tires pumped up to the max so that may be why. although i think its over-priced ill definitely buy it again.

And on a side note, i recommend the 700x26 over the 23, my friend had that size and his lasted about 10 times as long as mine did, no clue why but it did.

Weaknesses: Can't think of any the price is right and I have had less life with comparably priced tires.

Bottom Line:

If you ride brakeless fixed gear and are constantly skidding, these are the tires for you. I used to go through a tire a month. I have been abusing these tires for over a year now. They are strong have great traction and have sustained the where and tear of daily fixed gear riding.

I bought one of these tires without doing any research after getting a sidewall failure during long-distance ride (on my front panaracer urban max, which was about 2 years/~5k miles old at that point). Let me tell you, this thing has NO traction in wet weather. I fell twice in 5 days since getting this tire, and actually recovered from a front-wheel skid twice more (a skill I DON'T WANT to have to develop). I'm replacing it with something with more traction, probably a specialized armadillo.